Richard Hasen has a piece entitled Show Me the Donors on Slate. Here is a taste:
Democrats in Congress have proposed tightening up these rules yet again in the DISCLOSE Act, but they larded up the bill with new limits on corporate political activities and no Republicans were willing to back even a straight disclosure bill. Even if the bill passed, it it's not clear it would solve the problem. It doesn't bar secret contributions to nonprofit veterans organizations, leading to speculation that they could be the new front groups.
This election season, enterprising journalists, especially at the New York Times, have been digging into the shell game of contributions and spending, including activities by the American Future Fund, Crossroads GPS, and Americans for Job Security. The most important piece theTimes has run, by Mike McIntire, demonstrated in vivid detail just how hard it is to follow the money without disclosure rules strongly enforced by the government.* As McIntire explains, after his extensive investigation into the backers of the "Coalition to Protect Seniors" led him to P.O. boxes and unanswered e-mails, it looked as if the health care industry might be behind an ad the group ran attacking the president's health care plan. But in all likelihood, we'll never know for sure. That's how porous our disclosure rules have become.